


more than the cosmos

by questionably_fortunate_bamboo



Series: jonsa season 7 summer challenge [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jonsa S7 Summer Challenge, interstellar au, my finest work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-29 05:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11433909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionably_fortunate_bamboo/pseuds/questionably_fortunate_bamboo
Summary: Jon Snow is a part of a team sent through a wormhole into the depths of space to find a new planet for the inhabitants of the dying earth. He falls in love with Sansa Stark on the way, and neither time nor space can keep them apart.(written for day one of the jonsa s7 summer challenge - travel)





	more than the cosmos

**Author's Note:**

> This is it! This is the work I am most proud of so far. It took me a month and a half to write this. I had planned on it being about three pages long, and it turned into fifteen (on Google Docs, where I do my writing). Needless to say, I absolutely love this piece.  
> It was inspired by the movie Interstellar, which is AMAZING. I recommend you listen to the soundtrack (it was composed by Hans Zimmer!). There's a really good compilation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBfk37Fa3H0  
> I hope you guys like this. I poured my heart and soul into it. Enjoy!

i.

When he stumbled upon the secret NASA base several miles away from his old, run-down farmhouse, Jon hadn’t wanted anything to do with the mission that Dr. Eddard Stark was proposing. A search for a planet that could host human life - it seemed more foolhardy than hopeful. But then, when he was introduced to astrobiologist Sansa Stark, that all seemed to change.

And now he’s standing at the docking station, helmet in one hand as he prepares to leave his entire world behind.

“I’m still working on the gravity problem. By the time you return, I’ll have solved it,” says Dr. Stark, gazing up at the massive ship. The only reason humans haven’t escaped the desolate earth is because gravity prevents such large objects to leave the atmosphere. Jon hopes with all his heart that Dr. Stark finds a way. He’s rather fond of humanity.

He has never expected to return to the pilot’s seat. After NASA was shut down and he went back to farming corn, it seemed like he was doomed to live a life bound to the crops that failed year after year. But now, here he is, about to embark on a journey that could determine the future of mankind.

“I’ll take care of Sansa,” says Jon, “and Robb, too.” It can’t be easy for Dr. Stark to let his two oldest children dive into the cosmos. Jon had known the Starks from his days as a pilot. They were always there for each other, like a wolf pack.

“Hey, Dr. Snow, ready to hop on the highway to hell?”

There are two robots going with them on the journey. Jon turns to face one of them - Ghost - who looms over him. The robots are tall, rectangular forms that are comprised of smaller rectangles to help them move, and small screens that display data. Ever since Jon arrived, Ghost has taken a liking to him. The other one, Lady, is over with the other crew members. He catches Sansa’s eye, and she offers a bright smile

“Ghost, what’s your humor setting?” Dr. Stark asks.

“Ninety five percent, sir.”

“Let’s tone that down to an even eighty.” Ghost lumbers away, and he turns to shake Jon’s hand.

“Good luck, Jon Snow. We’re counting on you.”

He joins the others at the airlock hatch.

“Hi, Jon. I hope Dad didn’t give you any trouble,” says Sansa. She and Margaery Tyrell, the crew’s astrophysicist, are wearing matching braided hairstyles.

“Nah, none at all.” Jon grins awkwardly at her. It’s impossible not to. She’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

“C’mon, Snow. You ready?” asks Robb. Theon stands next to him, with a confident grin on his face.

Jon takes one more lungful of planet earth’s air. He hopes with all his heart that it’s not the last.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

As it turns out, the earth is much more beautiful from space. No dust, just a little sphere of blue and green and brown and white. Some extraterrestrial visitor would never be able to guess that the inhabitants were dying, starving, suffocating. Jon tears his gaze away from his home (their home, everyone’s home) and focuses on his crewmates.

Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Margaery Tyrell, Theon Greyjoy, and Jon Snow. They’re an odd group, but hopefully a good one.

“Daydreaming?” Sansa asks, in the seat across from his. He grins and shakes his head.

“Nah. Just looking.” He turns his head so he’s not straining his neck looking backwards. “It’s a lot smaller from up here, isn’t it?”

“Small, yes. Unimportant, no. Life is worth more than the entire cosmos,” she says, offering a small smile. He adds  _philosopher_  to the list of things he can associate with Sansa Stark (along with  _astrobiology, redhead,_ and _most beautiful woman in the galaxy_ ).

Some part of his mind is wandering far away, repeating the name Sansa Stark like a hymn. Jon busies himself with preparing the docking sequence. Their current ship (technically a ranger, called the  _Rhaegal_ ) approaches the already existing  _Balerion_ , which comes with two other rangers, the  _Vhagar_  and the  _Meraxes_.

They’ve got two years in cryo sleep on board the  _Balerion_ , until they reach the wormhole near Saturn that will take them to a faraway galaxy. He could use a good two years to dream about her.

ii.

Jon is still recovering from cryo sleep when they meet to discuss their trajectory. It’s the five of them, Ghost, and Lady crowded around a few monitors, going over endless lists of numbers and throwing all of their combined knowledge around like a game of scientific basketball.

“We have three possible candidates. There’s Dr. Lysa Arryn’s planet, Dr. Stannis Baratheon’s planet, and Dr. Tyrion Lannister’s planet. Now, from the data we’ve received, Dr. Arryn’s is the most useful,” explains Theon, showing them several graphs of information. He goes on to detail the kind of data transmissions they’ve been getting during their two year course to the wormhole near Saturn. Jon’s head seems fuzzy, and he rubs his temple.

“Hey.” Sansa reaches over to grasp his free hand. “Are you okay?”

 _That’s an interesting question_ , he thinks jokingly, but then loses his train of thought when her thumb runs along his knuckles. Jon wants her to touch him forever and ever.

“Better now,” he says. She smiles and squeezes his fingers. For a moment, he braces himself for the loss of her touch, but she keeps a hold of him.

Fuck. He’s not supposed to be falling in love with a beautiful red-haired astrobiologist on their journey to find salvation for mankind, but somehow he is.

“... which would be up to Jon and Sansa.”

Jon blinks. Robb, Theon, and Margaery are staring at them. Sansa cleverly adjusts the way she’s standing so their hands are hidden. He tries to figure out what they’re talking about.

“Based on the information given, I’d say that Dr. Arryn’s planet is the most promising,” she says.

“I agree completely. It’s worth a shot,” says Jon, hoping that it suffices for an answer. Robb nods and turns back to his calculations.

“Now, we’re all familiar with Einstein’s theory of relativity. From what I can tell, time is going to run much slower on this planet. Every hour we spend there will be… nearly eight years back on Earth.”

Jon bites his tongue. There is no one waiting back on Earth for him - only the bones of his mother - but everyone else on the mission has family that they left behind.

“I’ll stay behind with Lady while you four and Ghost take the Meraxes down to the surface. I could use a few years to run calculations about gravity,” Margaery says. She brushes her hair to the side, fiddling with a pen.

They finalize their plans. Sansa’s hand doesn’t leave his until the other three crew members leave to check on the engines.

“You’re certain you feel better?” she asks.

“I- well, yeah, I mean… I do,” he stammers, a rosy blush rising to his cheeks.

“Good.” She leans on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek. Jon wonders if he’s really so predictable, but it’s not as if he was really  _trying_  to hide his growing love for Sansa.

When her fingers part from his, he feels emptier.

iii.

 _Fuck Einstein_ , Jon thinks as they leave the atmosphere of Dr. Arryn’s planet.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he roars. His voice shakes with rage.

“I was trying to save him!” Robb says, still trying to regain his breath on the floor of the ranger. His curly auburn hair is wet and matted to his head, and there’s a bleeding scrape on his cheek where he fell on his way into the  _Meraxes_. Jon can still hear the thunderous sounds of the gigantic wave that nearly killed them. As it turned out, the water that made Arryn’s planet so inviting also made it uninhabitable.

“We’re all leaving things behind, Robb,” says Sansa, more calm than either of them but still letting her words grind through her throat. All the precious data that Dr. Lysa Arryn had collected now drifts somewhere in the oceans of her planet, along with the dead body of Theon Greyjoy.

“He’s a human being! Are we supposed to just  _let him go_?”

“Do you fucking understand what you’ve done? Ghost, how much time did we spend on Arryn’s planet?” Sansa asks, her voice rising.

“According to the planet’s time, about two and a half hours,” the robot replies. Jon kicks the side of the Meraxes in frustration.

“Two and a half hours,” Sansa echoes. “Robb, you didn’t give up on Theon, you gave up on everyone back home. Two and a half hours- god, that’s _years_ , you idiot!” Her hands are shaking, and she abandons the console altogether.

“We all knew about relativity. We were losing  _time_  no matter what, but we didn’t have to lose Theon.”

“Fuck you,” spits Sansa. She slumps into the co-pilot’s seat and stares out of the window.

“Ghost, initiate docking sequence with the  _Balerion_ ,” Jon says. He slides into the pilot’s seat. The  _Meraxes_  swifty rejoins the main ship with Ghost’s help. Sansa reaches for the button to open the airlock, but then pauses.

 _It’s okay_ , he wishes he could tell her. He’s scared as hell about what they might find. Sansa bites her lip and presses the button. The airlock hisses and parts, revealing Margaery Tyrell.

“Hello,” she says. She hasn’t changed very much, to Jon’s relief. Her caramel hair is a bit longer and less wavy, and the corners of her eyes crinkle a bit more obviously. Perhaps there are some faint wrinkles along her cheeks as well, but she doesn’t look horribly different.

“You didn’t go into cryo sleep?” says Robb, looking incredulous. There are tears still drying on his cheeks, and Jon feels guilty for yelling at him.

“I did a couple months at a time. Eventually, I stopped thinking you were coming back. It didn’t feel right to sleep my life away,” she explains. Sansa steps forward and wraps her arms around Margaery. Lady comes up behind them, though there’s no change on her metallic exterior.

“How long were we gone?”

“Twenty one years, two months, four days,” says Lady. “We’re receiving messages, but we can’t send any. There are decades of transmissions waiting for you.”

Sansa sits down at her station, while Robb stays on the  _Meraxes_  and pulls up his file on the monitor. The first messages begin to play.

“Hey, Sansa,” says a young woman with dark hair. “It’s me, Arya, your favorite sister ever. D’you miss me yet? Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I miss you like hell.” Arya begins a story about her experiences since they left. Jon slips away, leaving Sansa some privacy. He can see through the air lock into the  _Meraxes_ , though, where Robb is watching his messages with Margaery standing nervously to the side.

A smiling woman with a toddler on her lap is displayed on the screen. “Hi, Robb! It’s me, Talisa. Can you say hi to daddy, Ned?”

“Hi, daddy!” the kid squeals happily, waving his hands.

There are dozens of messages. Robb watches them all. Some are from his brothers Bran and Rickon, and he recognizes Arya in a few. Dr. Stark sends messages every six months at first, and then every year. It’s amazing and terrifying to watch Robb’s family grow older over a series of videos.

Some of them are happy. His youngest brother, Rickon, reports delightedly that he’s getting married to a girl named Shireen, and even introduces her. She has light hair and a bright smile, and tells Robb that she works at NASA alongside Dr. Stark. Most of the messages, however, are from his wife and son.

“Hey, dad,” says a handsome teenage boy, “Ned again. I finished school today, and I guess I wanted you to know that. Got top grades in all my math and science classes. Mom says that my head works just like yours. Wouldn’t know, really. Wherever you are, I just want you to know… I’m glad I’m your son and I hope you’re proud of me.”

The following one is from a woman who seems unfamiliar, until Jon recognizes her as Rickon’s wife, Shireen. She’s wearing a lab coat, and there are dark circles under her eyes.

“Dr. Stark, I’m sorry to tell you that your father died today. He was in no pain. I’m very sorry for your loss.” She pauses and wipes her eyes. “I’m trying to finish his work. I promised I’d find a way. Please, you have to trust me.” The screen fades, leaving Robb to process the information.

In the next message, Ned is wearing black. It takes him a minute to start talking, and when he does his voice breaks.

“Mom… mom died today.”

Robb falls to his knees. In an instant, Margaery is at his side.

“It’s been going on for a while. Doctors found a tumor in her brain last year. I know I should’ve sent you a message sooner, but every time I tried… it’s so fucking hard, dad. Her last words were ‘your father would be proud of you’. I want to believe that. I really want to believe that you’re out there somewhere. God, this is so fucked up. I’m sorry. Mom loved you and she’d want you to come home, so please come home.”

The video fades to black. Robb buries his face in Margaery’s shoulder and screams. It’s the purest, rawest emotion in the world. Grief. Jon’s seen his fair share of it. He leaves the ranger, too afraid to face his fears.

Sansa is waiting outside. Her eyes are thoroughly bloodshot and her hair is loose around her shoulders like a fiery waterfall.

“I don’t know if this even matters,” she whispers. He doesn’t know what to say. She’s just seen her whole family grow up without her. Her parents are dead, her brother is broken to pieces, and she’s so alone in a great big universe that wants to swallow her whole.

“It has to,” he says. With a choked back sob, she leans forward and buries her face between his neck and shoulder. He lets her weep against him while he strokes her hair and peppers soft kisses on her head.

Robb eventually falls asleep on the floor of the cockpit. Margaery finds a pillow and blanket for him and keeps watch over the console as they drift through space. The ship is more silent than it has ever been.

Jon doesn’t ask any questions when Sansa curls up next to him in his bunk, which is far too small for two. He holds her and hums quietly to the tune of a song whose lyrics have been forgotten. She whispers things to him, all her regrets, frustrations, hopes, and dreams, and he whispers ‘ _I know, it’s alright_ ’ as if he could ever know.

He’s not sure if she’ll sleep, but eventually she stops talking and her breathing evens out. Sansa looks peaceful when she sleeps, almost angelic.

The next morning, he wakes to find his bed empty. Sansa is out in the cockpit of the  _Balerion_ , staring out into space as they follow their course (to Dr. Baratheon’s planet, as he later discovers). She wears an inexpressive face despite the pain she must be feeling. It’s far too much for one person to bear.

Jon swears to himself that she will never lose  _him_.

iv. 

Three things go wrong on Baratheon’s planet.

The first is that it’s worthless. As Dr. Baratheon explains to them, the atmosphere at their elevation is full of ammonia. The only possible habitat for life is hundreds of miles below them, where he hasn’t managed to send any probes. In addition to this, the temperatures are freezing and the weather is vicious.

The second, most important thing, is that Dr. Baratheon turns out to be a complete fucking lunatic. A bit of irregularity would be expected with someone who’d spent years in cryo sleep, but no, he’s a true psychopath who attempts to murder Jon when they go out to survey the land.

Being pushed down a rocky slope hurts. Breathing in the poisonous air hurts even worse. But when he realizes he might die without telling Sansa that he loves her - that hurts worst of all.

She and Robb find him after he sends out an emergency distress signal, nearly passed out, and have to drag him back to the ranger. Jon tries to explain Baratheon’s betrayal between gasps of air, telling them that Stannis will most likely try to take over the mission. Sansa scrambles to turn on her radio.

“Margaery, do you copy? Get out of there immediately, over.”

There’s nothing but static on the other end. As they approach the base, they discover why - and that’s the third thing that goes wrong.

The entire structure is in flames, most likely because of Stannis. Lady is waiting for them, and climbs inside the ship as fast as her prismatic arms can carry her.

“What happened, Lady?” Sansa asks.

“The base exploded. I don’t know what happened to Dr. Tyrell.” Through the windows at the front of the ship, Jon looks at the wreckage. It would be impossible to survive such a devastating blast.

“We have to go back and look for Margaery!” says Robb, and it’s as if they’re back in  _Meraxes_  again, screaming at each other to either save or abandon Theon Greyjoy.

“Robb, we have to get back to the  _Balerion_. If Stannis takes control, we’re out of options,” Jon says. He hears a loud thud, and looks back to see Robb hunched over on the floor.

“ _I can’t lose everyone I fucking love!”_

“Shut up!” Sansa shouts through her own tears. “Just shut up, okay? She’s dead, and there’s nothing we can do about that!”

She wipes her eyes and takes the co-pilot’s seat. They’ve left the atmosphere, and are approaching the  _Balerion_. Baratheon’s ranger is near an outer airlock.

“Lady, is he locked on?”

“Not correctly. If he opens the airlock, he’ll die.”

“Can we transmit radio messages to his ranger?”

“No, but I can rebroadcast to the ship’s PA system.”

“Do that,” he says. Lady gives him the affirmative. “Dr. Baratheon, do not open the airlock!” There’s no response for several chilling seconds, then a voice comes through the radio.

 _“Stand down, Dr. Snow. I’m taking control of the Balerion_.”

“I repeat, do not open the airlock, it is not sa-”

Baratheon’s ranger explodes in a brilliant flash, taking several parts of the  _Balerion_  with it. There is no sound of destruction to accompany it, having been lost to the vacuum of space. Sansa reaches over to him and squeezes his hand. Despite the barrier of their gloves, Jon feels fireworks in his fingers. He closes his eyes and thinks, thinks, about what to do.

He turns off autopilot and takes a deep breath.

“Jon? What are you doing?” she says, barely audible over the alarms and growl of the engines.

“Docking.”

v. 

Once they’re on board, Jon asks Ghost how much food and water resources they have left. The answer isn’t good. There’s no time to worry about it, though, because the explosion of Baratheon’s ranger has sent the ship spinning towards the black hole. Robb, Sansa, Jon, and Ghost take control of the  _Balerion_ ’s cockpit, trying to save their vessel from a dark death. A red light begins to blink, and alarms blare through the ship.

“The right engine system is failing. Sansa, can you override it?” Jon asks, running diagnostics on their fuel output.

“I’m trying, but nothing’s working!”

“It needs to be manually rewired,” Robb says. He begins unbuckling the straps holding him in place.

“What the hell are you doing? The ship’s about to fall apart!” says Sansa. Robb reaches out for her and kisses her forehead. Their sea blue eyes lock together and engage in some silent conversation that no one else could ever hope to understand.

He drifts away from her and secures his helmet with a tight click. The visor is still up, and his face stares into the void ahead of them. It all feels terrifyingly prophetic. Staring into the darkness, balancing the acceptance and denial of death in hands too human to understand.

“Take care of each other,” he says, then makes his way out of the cockpit. Jon prays that those words won’t be the last memory he has of Robb Stark. Sansa adjusts herself in the other pilot’s seat and seals the cockpit airlock, allowing them to remove their helmets.

They hurriedly begin securing the ship. Jon is too focused on the dark horizons outside the window that he almost misses a blaring notification on his screen.

“The right engine system is depressurizing,” he says. Sansa scrambles to reach the emergency PA button.

“Robb, get out of-”

 _BOOM_. The entire ship is rocked by a vicious explosion. The display shows the right engine system is completely gone. Debris is scattered behind them in a sickening mosaic. Half of a helmet drifts out into the void.

The PA system buzzes with static.

Jon feels sick to his stomach. He struggles to breathe, to make sense of everything. Any second now, Robb will come back into the cockpit and grin at them, tell them everything’s sorted out, no need to worry. Jon is almost convinced that this will happen, until he hears Sansa’s tortured voice piercing through the chaos.

“ _NO_!” Sansa screams, clawing at the console, the seat, her suit, anything she can find. “No, no, no!  _No!_ ” She cries out in agony, as if she’s being burned alive from the inside.

“Sansa, look at me. We have to focus,” says Jon, even though his mind is spinning.

“Fuck, we’re going to die out here!” she says, eyes wide with terror.

“Ghost, take the controls!”

“On it.”

Jon frees himself from his seat and floats over to Sansa, who is drifting like she’s in an invisible ocean. He cups her cheek in his palm, desperately trying to reel her back into her own mind.

“Sansa, look at me. I love you. I need you.”

She examines his eyes and offers a miniscule smile.

“Love you too,” she mutters, gripping his face in her cold, shaking hands. He closes the space between them, kissing her desperately and hopelessly. She tastes like blood, saltwater, and undiminished determination, and god, he would give anything and everything to drink her in. Behind his eyelids, their impossible future plays out like an old black-and-white movie.

Their teeth scrape together, and Jon growls as he watches all the things they will never do.  _He will never be able to see her eyes next to the sea or her hair next to a pile of freshly fallen leaves in autumn. He will never bury his head between her thighs and spend starry nights tangled in her arms. He will never hear little children call him ‘dad’, or her ‘mom’. They will never have safety or security, or even a place to call home._

Time seems to slow down and speed up at the same time. Their lips are still locked together, but they stare defiantly into each other’s eyes. Jon has made his peace with death. He can still love Sansa Stark from a cold, starlit grave. He has loved her from one end of the universe to another.  _If space and time can’t stop him from loving her, then nothing really can_ , he supposes.

When they finally break apart, his heart feels heavy. Not with regret, perhaps, but the faint idea of what he must do.

“We’ll use the rangers as engines. You take  _Meraxes_ , I’ll take  _Rhaegal_. Ghost, you take _Vhagar_. When we get far enough away, Ghost can detach, and we’ll take it from there. The gravity will be too strong for all three rangers and the ship to escape.”

She still seems absent, and Jon cups her cheek in his palm.

“Hey. You’re gonna be fine, I promise. I love you,” he says. Sansa closes her eyes, regains her composure, and nods. They set off, each going to one of the rangers. Lady goes with Sansa. Once he’s in the _Rhaegal_ , Jon turns on the engines and the radio.

“Ghost, you there?”

“ _Aye, cap’n. Engines on full._ ”

Jon buckles in and watches as the ship begins to slowly move away from the hole. Once they’ve made progress, he sees the  _Vhagar’s_  engines die down.

_“Vhagar, detach in three… two… one… detach!”_

_“Good luck, Ghost!”_  says Sansa through her end of the radio.

“Goodbye, Dr. Stark. Goodbye, Jon.”

Jon watches the monitor carefully. They’ve finally neared the edge of the hole. He’s never been religious, but he closes his eyes and offers a silent prayer to any god that might be listening.  _Save Sansa Stark._

“ _Rhaegal_ , detach in three… two… one…”

_“What? Jon, what are you doing?”_

“I can’t save both of us. You can still get to Lannister’s planet,” he says. The choice was easy to make once he knew how low their food and water rations were, and the ship could never make it away with more than one ranger. He would save her instead of himself in a heartbeat.

_“Don’t leave me! Jon, please! You’re all I have left, you can’t leave, don’t do this to me. Please, please, please, Jon…”_

“Detach.”

The ranger disengages from the _Balerion_  and begins its fall towards the black hole. A panicked cry pierces his ears.

“Sansa, love, listen to me,” he pleads. Her ragged breath echoes through the radio.

_“You promised me.”_

“I know. I did. I’m so fucking sorry, but I can’t undo this.”

_“What can I do?”_

“Just keep talking,” he says. The  _Rhaegal_  shakes violently, and the lights on the console flicker on and off.

_“I love you so much, Jon.”_

“I know, sweet girl, I love you too.”

_“No, you don’t understand. I love you more than anything. Robb is dead, and I don’t have anyone else, so please… just please come back to me.”_

Jon resents making promises he can’t keep, but he hears her quiet sobs on the other end of the channel and can’t bring himself to leave her without hope.

“Always, Sansa. I’ll always come back. You’re my entire world, Sansa Stark.”

_“Jon, I-”_

The radio goes silent, which is the final, painful nail in his coffin. He whispers  _I love you_  into thin air as the ship plunges into the abyss.

Everything is dark. Jon closes his eyes, takes a long breath, and waits.

vi. 

The nothingness evaporates and suddenly he is awake.

“Whoa, slow down there, Mr. Snow. It’ll take a few minutes for you to adjust.” A doctor in a white coat stands by the hospital bed that he’s lying in. Jon groans and squints, trying to see through the bright fluorescent lights. On his other side is a young nurse with a name tag that he can’t quite make out.

“What is this place?” Jon asks, sitting up slowly. The light in the room is so different from what he’s gotten used to. It’s not real, it’s more artificial. Compared to the light of the stars, it’s almost laughable. He wonders when he started feeling so cynical about light.

“This is Baratheon Station, sir. Currently orbiting Saturn.”

“Baratheon? As in… Stannis?” The nurse giggles and exchanges a glance with the doctor.

“Ah, no. As in Shireen Baratheon, his daughter. She solved the whole problem with gravity, you see. Made all of this possible. She’s, ah… quite an extraordinary woman,” he says.

Jon nearly laughs. He remembers the message Shireen sent to Robb, when Dr. Stark had died.  _I’m trying to finish his work_ , she had said. Jon had taken it for granted. He wonders at the irony of it all. For decades, NASA had looked to the stars for a solution to save mankind, when it had been on earth all along.

“I’ll have some clothes brought to you. Take it easy, Mr. Snow.”

More doctors and more nurses come to check on him, probably just to get a look at Jon Snow, the legendary astronaut that did no more to save the earth than all the people who had died before him. He sits back, answers questions as quickly as he can, and stares out the window.

It feels wrong. Yes, humanity has been saved, but there is something in his heart that feels discontent. There must be more.

They bring Ghost to him. He’s a little battered, but he still cracks a few dumb jokes and keeps Jon from drowning in his own mind.

“What are you going to do?” Ghost asks. If a robot could sound heartbroken, then Ghost certainly does.

There is a planet somewhere in the cosmos where Sansa Stark is alive. Her heart is beating, her eyes are scanning the unfamiliar horizons. The entire universe is against her. It’s infinity to one, and the odds will never favor the beautiful red haired genius that travelled through several galaxies just to lose everyone that she loved.

“I’m going to find her,” says Jon.

vii.

Her world is large, livable, and empty.

She buries Dr. Lannister away from the camp. Lady does all of the digging and lifting. She says a few words (even though it’s mostly just echoing what she remembers the priest saying at her mother’s funeral, the year before she joined NASA). The atmosphere proves to be hospitable, which allows her to remove her helmet and breathe in the air.

Sansa runs some numbers and Lady collects data from the camp’s archives. The planet is perfectly suited for human life. Lannister had even begun a small garden outside the main structure. She tends it with disinterest.  _Jon should be with her_. They need each other to survive.

Lady reminds her that they still have a mission to complete. Sansa tries to believe that her efforts aren’t futile. She makes some repairs to the communications array and begins transmitting help signals. It’s more of a stress relieving tactic than a useful errand.

“This is Sansa Stark, transmitting from Dr. Tyrion Lannister’s planet. Does anyone copy? Over.” She waits for sixty seconds, then repeats her message.

This is how her days pass.

“This is Sansa Stark, transmitting from Dr. Tyrion Lannister’s planet. Does anyone-”

There’s a sharp crackle of static, and Sansa swears under her breath.

“Lady, you watch over everything. I think the communications array is damaged,” she says, tugging on her boots. Outside, the sky is clear and blue. The array is situated on top of a short rocky hill right by the camp. She trudges over and slowly begins to climb.

On top of the plateau, only about forty yards from the array, a small ranger is landed. There is no title on it, and no indication of life inside the cockpit. She stares in apprehension, until a figure emerges from the exit lock.

Sansa exhales sharply, as if a hard blow has landed on her chest. Jon takes off his helmet and stops a few feet away from her. Words escape her. She struggles to find a clear thought in the hurricane in her head.

“You came back for me."

“Promised you, didn’t I?” he says, as if that explains everything (and even if it doesn’t, she’s so overjoyed to see his face that it really couldn’t matter less).

Jon holds out his arms, and she throws herself against his chest with a gasp of relief. He’s warm and strong and safe. While the strange sun shines down on them, she holds onto him with every ounce of strength in her body. They have each other. And that is worth more than the entire cosmos.

 

_the end_

**Author's Note:**

> Godddd I hope you liked it! Tell me your feelings in the comments!


End file.
